Flexible working increases work-life balance finds survey

According to a survey conducted by Powwownow, over 82% of respondents feel more productive when working from home. PowWowNow, a free conference calling provider, surveyed 1,000 people who were employed full time and 1,000 people who were employers.

When given the option employees prefer flexible hours to a flexible location. 44% of workers said that being able to get work done with no distractions was the biggest appeal to flexible working, however, less traffic was a close second with over 40% citing that reason.

Nearly 70% of employees said that home was their favourite location to work from when working flexibly. However, 22% said that the office was their favourite, as long as it was outside of normal working hours. Email and telephone are the most common ways that people communicate with colleagues when working flexible, with 68.8% and 26.5% respectively. According to the survey, the average number of days employees would like to work flexibly is 2.45 days.

Over 50% of workers In the UK said that they would work the same hours (9-5) if they were able to work from home. However they said that they would take fewer breaks when working flexibly, so does this mean that the employer would be getting more for their money?

Jason Downes, Managing Director at www.powwownow.co.uk said: “Flexible working is becoming a necessity within our working lives. Companies really need to embrace this in order to remain competitive.

The days of the 9-5 are really coming to end and more and more people are choosing to work flexibly, communication in that case is key in order to keep the normal flow of the working day”.

Employers have really embraced flexible working with over 77% saying that is leads to a better work life balance and more motivated staff, this will therefore increase productivity within the workforce. Over 60% of employers say that flexible working is the key to staying competitive. 53.6% of employers believe that flexible working should be implemented across all industries.

Women tend to ask for flexible working more than men, as they would like to spend more time with children. Women bosses also tend to be less trusting when an employee asks for flexible working. The IT sector is the most popular industry to work flexibly with over 68% saying that they do so.

In terms of childcare, over 60% of employers say that they are more likely to allow flexible working due to child care commitments. 19.1% of employees say that the appeal of flexible working would be because it lessens the costs associated with childcare, with over 22% of women and over 15% of men saying this. 30% of women and over 26% of men say that the biggest appeal, totalling around 28%, say that the biggest appeal to flexible working would be being able to spend more time with their children. This ties back to the more than 77% of employers saying that it leads to better work life balance.